Korea Land and Housing Corporation (LH) will convert the site and office building of its Seoul Regional Headquarters in Nonhyeon-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul into youth housing to increase housing supply in the urban core. The site, about 2,000 pyeong in area, is near Gangnam-gu Office Station and Seonjeongneung Station, and it was also included in past government supply plans when they were announced.

On the 6th, at a restaurant in Jongno-gu, Seoul, LH President Lee Seong-hun held his first press briefing one month after taking office and said, “We have decided to provide the LH Seoul Regional Headquarters (site) in Gangnam as housing for young people.” This is the first time the plan to offer the Seoul Regional Headquarters site as public rental housing for young people has been disclosed.

The site where the LH Seoul Regional Headquarters is located is a parcel in Nonhyeon-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, with a lot area of 6,588㎡ and a total floor area of 8,601㎡ (Type-2 General Residential Zone). The Korea Housing Corporation used it as its headquarters building from 1973, and after LH was launched in 2009, it served as the Seoul Regional Headquarters. It is a station-area location near Line 7 Gangnam-gu Office Station and Line 9 Seonjeongneung Station. Hakdong Elementary School lies within a 350-meter radius.

Under the Moon Jae-in administration, the Aug. 4, 2020 housing supply package also named this site as a candidate location to supply 200 homes, but the push was halted.

Lee said, “The government ordered us to supply more units at a faster pace, and we had been reviewing development of idle sites or aging office buildings in the urban core,” adding, “As the agency that executes housing supply, we looked for what we could do to the maximum extent, and decided to make this symbolic building, which served as the heart of housing supply in South Korea for 52 years, available as housing for young people.” LH is reviewing a plan to use a leased office building in exchange for releasing the Seoul headquarters site.

Lee identified ‘shortening the supply timeline’ as the most urgent task. He said, “The phase that takes the most time before groundbreaking is compensation,” and added, “We will dramatically shorten the duration of compensation procedures by significantly increasing compensation personnel.”

Debt exceeding 173 trillion won is also an issue. After President Lee Jae Myung told LH not to engage in ‘land dealing,’ the corporation could no longer sell residential land to the private sector. As a result, the debt ratio is bound to rise further, and funds to build public housing are insufficient. Lee said, “Because we are not selling land, revenue does not flow in immediately, and money comes in later when rents are collected or units are sold, so capital recovery is delayed and debt increases during that period,” while adding, “We expect financing to proceed smoothly through next year regardless of the debt ratio.”

Lee also emphasized that, to accelerate supply, the management evaluation system focused on debt control needs improvement. He said, “Because the evaluation encourages cautious investment and strict management of debt, it has been difficult to increase the pace of supply,” adding, “We are in discussions with government ministries and others to change these aspects.”

Lee was appointed the seventh president of LH on the 3rd of last month. A former official at the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, he entered public service after passing the technical civil service exam in 1996, and in 2021, when President Lee Jae Myung was serving as governor of Gyeonggi Province, he was seconded to the province as director of construction, forging ties. After the launch of the current administration, he was appointed presidential secretary for land, infrastructure and transport, coordinating work between the presidential office and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and overseeing the government's real estate policy.